The wireless mesh network expands the coverage area of the wireless local area network in a wireless multi-hop way. In particular, the wireless mesh network implemented based on IEEE802.11 has attracted a great deal of attention.
A method for authenticating a mesh node in the related art is described as follows. A secure path to an authentication server is stored within the mesh node. A new node selects an adjacent node as a first node, and transmits an initial authentication request message to the first node. The first node transmits the initial authentication request message to the authentication server through the secure path. The authentication server performs initial authentication on the new node and transmits an authentication message to the new node. The new node transmits a hop-by-hop authentication request message to the first node. The first node transmits the authentication message to the new node which performs hop-by-hop authentication based on the authentication message received from the first node and the authentication message received from the authentication server. The first node transmits the hop-by-hop authentication request message to the new node which transmits the authentication message to the first node. The first node performs hop-by-hop authentication based on the authentication message received from the new node and the authentication message received from the authentication server.
However, the main drawbacks of the above authentication method lie in that three authentication handshakes are required for the authentication between the new node and the first node, and such complicated authentication will increase the access time delay of the mesh node.